


The Visitor

by Scorpio71



Category: Doctor Who, NCIS, Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4324851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scorpio71/pseuds/Scorpio71
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One quiet evening, Gibbs receives a visitor while working on his boat. His life is never the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visitor

The Visitor  
A Dr Who/Torchwood/NCIS crossover

 

A soft creaking of the stairs had him turning his head slightly. The sight that greeted him caused him to startle and his tool slipped. A sliver of wood drifted unnoticed to the sawdust coated floor.

The man was tall, with a lean athletic build that hinted at a combination of strength and speed. His suit was...odd. Classy and elegant, it was made of wool, silk and accented with what seemed to be real silver. Yet the cut of it was not something he'd ever seen before, not in the office and not in any magazine.

Beyond the strange clothes, it was the man's face that had Gibbs' nerves wound taunt and his mind spinning. Short dark hair just starting to gray at the temple, glittering green eyes framed with long dark lashes and crow's feet. A blindingly white smile that could have been the main feature of a toothpaste commercial.

"Tony..."

His voice was less than a whisper, but the man must have heard it because the smile grew even bigger. Still, Gibbs shook his head. It couldn't be Tony because this man was far too old to be his second. Tony DiNozzo was in his late twenties, this man was probably closer to his late fifties. 

"Hey, Boss." And the grin softened then, as did the eyes. "Wow, it's been a long time since I called anyone that." Those green eyes refocused and pierced him. "Since I called you that."

Gibbs took a deep breath and then clamped down on his whirling emotions and the thousands of questions screaming through his brain. Instead, he simply stepped away from his boat and over to his worktop and carefully set the tool down. A glance over to the other man and then he grabbed his bottle of bourbon. He topped of his mug, paused, and then unscrewed a jar of penny-nails and dumped them out on the surface of his worktop. He blew out any dust and then poured two fingers of bourbon in it.

A soft chuckle of true amusement had him glancing back over at the man and he quirked a grin that was as close to an apology for the lack of real glasses as he would get. He handed over the jar and the man took it and saluted him with it. He picked up his own mug and lifted it in the man's direction before taking a swallow.

"You look like DiNozzo." The man was grimacing comically at the burn and taste of the cheep booze. "I know you're not his father, so....uncle? Cousin?" 

The man snorted in amusement and graced him with another smile. "No."

Gibbs smirked. "Older illegitimate brother looking to get into Daddy Warbucks' will?"

The stranger let loose with a bark of a laugh that trailed off into a chuckle. His green eyes twinkled and his shoulders shook lightly with humor. Then he turned and flashed his 1000 watt smile at Gibbs. "Geeze Boss! Where do you come up with these things? No older brothers, illegitimate or not."

Gibbs smile dimmed at hearing the man call him 'Boss' again and he stared at him intently. "Then who are you?"

The man sighed and downed his drink. He didn't even wince that time.

"This is so much easier with strangers..." He sighed and turned a piercing stare at Gibbs for a moment before his expression softened. "You're not going to believe me. At least...not at first. Then you won't want to, but you will."

He put the jar down on the worktop and turned to fully face Gibbs. "I shouldn't even be the one to do this, but I insisted. I just had to see you again...."

Gibbs topped up his bourbon and then held up the bottle in question. The man shook his head and Gibbs screwed the cap back on and set it out of the way. Settling down on the stool behind him, he made a show of getting comfortable. "I'm all ears."

"I guess I should introduce myself." The man paused and Gibbs nodded at him slightly in a 'go on, tell me more' sort of way. "I'm Lieutenant Anthony DiNozzo, Field Operations Coordinator of Torchwood."

Gibbs eyes narrowed and he shifted on his stool, "Wha..."

He snapped his mouth shut on his own words when the man held up one hand in a 'stop' gesture and grimaced with sympathy in his eyes.

"Yes. I'm the same Anthony DiNozzo who is even now the Senior Field Agent on your team at NCIS. Just...let me explain everything first Boss. Then, I'll answer whatever questions I can." Those green eyes turned as serious as he'd ever seen them. "Please. I'm telling the truth. And...I need your help."

Gibbs debated for a moment. His brain was screaming at him that this couldn't be real. How could Tony be standing in front of him wearing strange clothes and looking as old, or possibly even older, than he was? How could the man he'd sent home just a few short hours ago be working for an agency he'd never even heard of? And yet...his gut told him to listen. To believe. His gut told him that those green eyes were the same as the eyes of his second in command. 

With a sigh he leaned back and reached up to rub at his forehead. "I'm not promising anything, but... Explain it to me. Lay it all out."

The man, DiNozzo if he was to believed, sighed and nodded.

"In the year 2013..." Gibbs startled and his head whipped up to stare intently at the man even as he nodded to confirm that Gibbs had heard correctly, "our team got a tip that highly advanced and experimental technology had been stolen. Not just the prototype, but also the research surrounding the development of it. The case went cold fairly quickly since the thieves covered their tracks so well, but..."

The man shrugged and flashed a sheepish grin that was so reminiscent of his own Tony DiNozzo that it nearly left Gibbs dizzy.

"Anyway, over time we had a few other cases that had the same MO, and through contacts in the various Metro units and such we found a whole list of other cold cases that also followed the pattern. All unsolved." The man rolled his eyes. "It drove me nuts, to be honest."

"Finally, towards the end of 2015 we caught a break and the case went hot again. It took a while and a lot of effort, but when we tracked it all down it led up to this underground facility that some nutjob had set up to perform experiments based upon something that he'd...found. Or...to be accurate, on a person he'd kidnapped."

DiNozzo paused and glanced over to make sure Gibbs was still listening. And he was. He was sure it was all the truth despite the fact that his brain was telling him it couldn't be true, especially the part where it was about events nearly a decade in the future.

"The person that had been kidnapped wasn't...human." Gibbs startled, but then clamped down on his reactions with the vicious discipline drilled into him by the US Marine Corps. "He was an alien being, from another planet. The last of a race of beings that called themselves Time Lords. This Time Lord was simply known as The Doctor."

"The Doctor has a...ship. It's amazing really, but the biggest thing is that it can travel not just through space, but also through time. The man that had kidnapped him did so in order to figure out the secrets of that ship."

"Is that why he stole all of that high-tech experimental stuff? To help him figure out the spaceship slash time machine?"

The man, future DiNozzo, paused and then sighed deeply. "Yeah. He thought...he thought that he could go into the past, change things and alter events." He shrugged, a sad look on his face. "Make the world a better place, I guess."

"The problem is, messing about with Time is not that simple. The consequences of things happening or not happening are... immense. Living outside the timestream is not something that most humans can survive alive and...sane for very long periods. Those that do meddle with time either have to stop and reenter the timestream eventually or they are...changed. Worse, it takes a lot of knowledge and understanding of time, space, dimensional convergences, physics and a whole bunch of other stuff just to get it right."

Gibbs wondered vaguely if he'd lost his own mind. Or perhaps he was just that drunk? He sent his mug of bourbon a mildly betrayed look. Then he glanced back up at the older version of his second in command and was forced to admit, even if only to himself, that he believed every word he was being told. And that Tony had been right; he would believe even as he really wished it was all an elaborate prank. 

"I take it the kidnapper failed in his quest?"

Older Tony nodded. "Yeah. He did, which is good since if he'd have somehow found a way to unravel the TARDIS's secrets of time travel, he'd have most likely fouled things up to the point of there being no human life left on Earth."

Gibbs blinked slowly as he absorbed that thought. That was one hell of a SNAFU.

"We released the Time Lord and he introduced himself as The Doctor. He explained about his people and about what his mission was; save humanity. Apparently, sometime in the far flung future his people, who by the way were extreme pacifists, were attacked in some sort of Time War. They were wiped out to a man with The Doctor being the sole survivor."

Tony shrugged and reached out for the bourbon. He refilled his jar and topped off Gibbs' mug before sipping his drink and sighing.

"I don't know the whole story, but... from what I could get. The Doctor blames himself for this Time War because when he was young and stupid he didn't agree with his people's extreme pacifist and extreme isolationist policies. Young, foolish and full of curiosity, he snuck away and left to explore the universe. He wasn't looking for trouble, he just wanted to learn and experience and...do. He once described his people as drifting through a life of quiet contemplation and meditation as opposed to humans who actually lived their life of excitement, hope and exploring the unknown. Sounds dumb to us, but that's because we have an acute sense of danger. The Doctor lived in a world where danger wasn't even a concept, let alone a truth."

"Unfortunately, he found what he was looking for along with the trouble and danger he didn't even realize existed. What's more, it followed him home. Next thing he knows, he's embroiled in a war and his people are losing."

"As the sole survivor of the entire race, he went off searching for something he could do to fix things. He found a seer that told him that his people could be saved by a race of beings known as Humans. They wouldn't be able to prevent the attack on the Time Lords, but they could swoop in and save the day. Only problem was, Humans were extinct. They'd died out eons ago."

"The reason that Humans could help is one I'm still trying to wrap my head around and it directly relates to why they don't do so well outside of the timestream." Tony gulped down the rest of the booze and grimaced. 

"Oh?" Gibbs was fairly certain that he didn't want to know. 

"Humans have free will."

Gibbs blinked.

"Most people think that simply means we can make choices. Choice to do this or that. Choice between being good or being evil. Choice to serve or to rebel." Tony shrugged again, but the look in his eyes was haunted. "That's true enough, but lots of races have that. The term 'free will' was given to humanity by someone that didn't quiet understand what it meant and so it's a bit misleading."

Gibbs shifted and tried to decide if he was too drunk for this conversation or simply not drunk enough. "In what way? I mean," he shrugged. "seems pretty self explanatory."

"Not really, but that's because you don't understand the metaphysics behind it." Tony eyed the bottle of bourbon for a moment before shaking his head and sighing. "See, with most races the timestream effects them. Molds them. No matter what choice they make, the timestream compensates to ensure that their destiny or fate or whatever still finds them. If your destiny is to die at the hands of person X, it doesn't matter where you choose to live or work or anything, person X will still end up killing you."

A sigh escaped Tony's lips before he tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling.

"Unless you're human."

There was a long pause then and the silence stretched out between them.

"Because of free will."

Tony's head came down and around and those green eyes stared at him.

"Yeah. See, free will means that the timestream doesn't effect humans. Humans effect the timestream. So...if you live in Canada, you die at the hands of person X. If you live in the States, person X dies at your hands. If you live in England, person X kills someone else."

"Cause and effect. The timestream bends to correct things with other races, but with humans...well, we don't bend the timestream. It flows past us no matter what we do. So...humans can effect the outcome of the Time War."

"We just have to find a way to survive as a species that long."

Tony flashed him that brilliant megawatt smile. "Exactly."

Gibbs stared at him for a long moment and then downed the rest of his drink in one swallow. Then he stood up and walked over to his boat, leaning heavily against one of the ribs. He ran gentle fingertips over the smooth grain of the wood, letting the familiar texture and scent soothe him as he let everything he'd just heard run through his mind again and again. 

It was a lot to take in and absorb all at once. Time traveling aliens. Genocidal wars. Metaphysics about what it means to be human. Warnings from the future.

Gibbs grew still and passed that last thought through his mind. Warnings from the future...only, there weren't any. At least, not really. He was told how Tony met the alien called The Doctor in the future. And he was told that they needed his help in the now. But...no, there was no warnings. His gut was telling him that there should be.

"So..." he turned around so that he was leaning his back on the boat and looking at the older version of Tony DiNozzo again. "What now?"

He shrugged and offered up a small smile. "Because as much as I'm enjoying this visit and the mind bending conversation, I can' imagine that you'd come back into the past and read me into what's probably a top secret agency mission for the joy of my booze or my company."

Tony paused, gave him a shrewd look and then nodded.

"Okay, bottom line time."

Gibbs smirked. "That'd be nice, DiNozzo. Especially since I get the feeling that I'm gonna end up neck deep in whatever crap you're already in."

Tony snorted an amused sound that was half laugh and half denial. He shook his head with a fond look on his face and grinned over at him. "Damn. I missed you Boss."

Then the smile fell away and he straightened up his spine and squared his shoulders. That serious and intent look was back in his green eyes.

"As I said, we freed The Doctor in 2015. He returned a little more than a year later chasing some alien that was looking for a way to bring in an invasion fleet. In The Doctor's original timeline, these beings are what wiped out humanity, so if he was going to guide us along the timestream in order to save his own race, he needed to prevent this invasion. We found out about it and helped him out."

"After the alien was dead and things were as safe as they could be, he offered me a chance to go with him when he left." The eyes rolled and a sheepish grin flashed across the basement. "Seems that The Doctor likes having a few humans with him on his journeys. Helps to keep him from being lonely, having someone to watch his back is often necessary, and when he first started, it helped for him to have a human about to explain human nature to him."

"And you left."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. He wasn't trying to sound accusing, but it must have come across that way because a flash of irritation washed over Tony's face and he tried to explain.

"You gotta understand Boss. You were one month from your retirement date. They were gonna split up McGee and I on top of it. Not that Probie wasn't more than ready for his own team, but..."

Tony reached up with one hand and rubbed it along his jaw, his eyes loosing focus as he peered into his own memories of a future that hadn't happened yet.

"They probably kept us together for too long anyway. They tried to break up the team once before and you made their life a living hell until you got us all back. To be honest, I don't think I could've worked on another team either. I was riding the edge of burnout pretty hard and the only thing helping me keep it together was you and McGee. If I would have accepted my own team, I'd have led them to their deaths."

"I left. I came back what for me was several years but for you was only a few weeks. We set you up as a trainer for recruits into Torchwood. Weapons handling, investigative skills, wilderness survival and unarmed combat training. Things were getting crazy and Torchwood needed Field Agents that could survive a wide variety of things. You trained them for me." Tony's flashed that smile again. "You make a damn good D.I., Boss."

Gibbs smirked at that last bit as there were thousands of Marines that would argue he was the Drill Instructor from Hell. Then he ended up nodding after thinking about it for a moment. He could see how Tony would want competent and skilled people that would think and react the same way he did and being trained by the man that trained Tony would help do that. Still...

"So..." Gibbs waved a hand through the air. "Torchwood? The Doctor run that agency?"

Tony sighed. "No. Not really. It's run by a man named Harkness. Harkness was one of the Doctor's apprentices too, but..." 

Tony paused and leaned back against the worktop, obviously searching for a way to explain it. Gibbs didn't think anything could get stranger than time traveling aliens.

"Torchwood Three is an agency based out of Cardiff in Wales. They have one primary mission and several secondary missions. The primary is simply to guard the Rift."

"The Rift?" And Gibbs was suddenly wanting another mug full of cheep rotgut. He eyed the nearly empty bottle of bourbon across the room.

"It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a rift, or tear, in the space-time continuum. It was created by the Time Wars and it never should have existed. It basically leads to other dimensions, other timelines, and sometimes to different points in the same timeline." 

Gibbs gave him a blank stare. 

"Think of the Rift as a doorway. One side of the doorway is stable. It's always in Cardiff Wales in the UK. And it follows the metaphysical laws of time too, in that it moves along the timestream at the same steady pace as the rest of the world." A deep sigh and rolling of green eyes. "The other side of the doorway isn't stable. It shifts around; sometimes to the past, sometimes to the future. Sometimes to other timelines and sometimes, to other dimensions."

A serious expression flitted across Tony's face and a haunted look entered his eyes, "Very few beings have unraveled the mystery of how to either predict or direct the destination of the other side of the Rift. Without that skill, you leave Cardiff and land in some random time and place."

Gibbs stared unseeing down at his worktop. He let everything he'd heard swirl around in his mind for long moments. This Rift thing sounded like the biggest nightmare he'd ever heard of. Unpredictable and dangerous. He could instantly see why they'd want an Agency full of trained soldiers and investigators stationed there to guard it. It also made sense to him that Tony would lead those Agents that he trained to do just that. As unbelievable and outrageous as it all sounded, neither he nor his second would be able to ignore such a danger.

"Okay..." Gibbs looked up at Tony, his blue eyes intense and searching. "It sounds crazy and like the plot of some made-for-tv-movie, but...too many top military officers and brainiac scientists stationed at NASA and Norad believe in aliens for me to dismiss it out of hand. And that Rift..." Gibbs shook his head at the improbability and yet, his gut was screaming at him that this was real. "I just don't get the difference between the past-future thing and the different timeline thing."

Tony nodded, an understanding look in his eyes. He paused a moment and visibly gathered his thoughts in order to explain.

"See Boss, when you go back in time and change the past, say for instance that you prevent J.F.K. from being shot. Then you return back to your starting time of now, you'll find that the world is changed. Everything is different. Some people lived instead of died. Others died instead of lived. Different shows on tv, different politicians in office, different everything."

Gibbs grunted and then nodded that he followed the logic, strange as it was.

"The thing to remember is this, it's still the same timeline. The same world, just that certain events in the past were altered. And because the timestream is NOT self-correcting where humans are concerned, everything after that change plays out differently."

"Okay. I get that. It's like some sorta whacked out concept that Abby would follow a whole lot easier, but...what's that got to do with the Rift?"

"Simple." And Gibbs doubted that it was anything like simple, but he made a 'tell me' gesture anyway.

"There's more than one timestream. If a single timestream is like a string of yarn, then the space-time continuum is thousands of those pieces of yarn all woven together to create the tapestry of life...like the ancients Greeks thought that the three Fates wove."

"Ah...." And really, Gibbs didn't even know how to respond to that. He snapped his mouth shut again.

"The Rift is a tear in that weave. Or possibly a tangled knot of all the individual stings. People, beings, and tech from one dimensional timestream can cross it into another. Including those aliens hellbent on invading the Earth, killing off the humans and then stripping the planet of all it's resources."

Gibbs reached up with one hand and rubbed at his temples. "not enough booze in the world for this..." he muttered.

"What's that Boss?"

He looked up at the older version of Tony and glared.

"So...you're part of the Agency that guards this hole in time?"

The other man nodded his head. "Yeah. I have been for a while now. I traveled around with The Doctor for a few years, but then I settled down in Cardiff to help Harkness out when things got crazy. As best we can tell, in several timestreams humans have fallen. In a few others, Torchwood was lost and the Daleks' control the Rift."

There was a long pause then. Gibbs got the feeling that it was more for Tony to figure out how to tell him the rest of it, but he was gonna use the time to try and wrap his head around everything he'd heard. At least as best as he could. He had a feeling it would be years, if ever, until he was comfortable with it.

Aliens. One that traveled through time manipulating events in history. Others that wanted to wipe out all of humanity and strip-mine the planet. That was so beyond anything he'd ever heard in his life. And he had heard a lot of doozies.

The only thing that wasn't a complete surprise that was hard to believe was the fact that DiNozzo was caught up in the middle of it all. 

"Hey Boss, uh..." Tony gave him an odd look. It was part sheepish, but also sorta regretful. "Remember how I told you that humans can't be outta the timestream too long because it changes them?"

Gibbs swallowed hard and frowned. "You also said it could drive a person insane."

Tony waved that off. "That's less to do with traveling through time as it has to do with dealing with knowing just how drastic a person can effect the timeline. Some people can't cope with the emotional stress of seeing the timeline change in drastic ways." He shrugged. "I'm not sure of all the ways he double checks, but after a few...incidents, The Doctor has been real careful of who he chooses to go with him through time." 

"Ah..." Gibbs tried to erase his frown. He still had a feeling the worst was still to come. "I see."

"Anyway, Harkness decided to guard the Rift because he was changed by his travels through time. Unlike most of The Doctor's apprentices, who are only effected by the forces of time gradually due to limited exposure, Harkness was hit with a massive wave of energy known as a Time Vortex. It changed him in much greater ways than expected. He's...well," Tony hesitated and waved a hand in the air searching for words. "I guess that he's actually a part of the timestream now. He's effectively immortal. He heals any wound, he doesn't age. He just...is. He's also real sensitive to fluctuations in the timestream."

A pained look flashed over Tony's face so quick that Gibbs wasn't even sure that it was there at all. "And you Tony? That's what you're leading up to, isn't it? How did stepping outside of Time effect you?"

There was a long moment of silence as Tony stared at him and he stared back. Finally Tony sighed and slumped.

"Harkness was exposed to the Time Vortex deliberately in an effort to save his life. The immortality was an unexpected side-effect. The Doctor thinks that since it was used to heal a mortal wound, that it will always attempt to heal him no matter when in the timeline he is. It's different for me."

"I was also exposed to a massive amount of energy that changed me, but it was a complete accident." Tony grimaced. "There is another Time Lord who calls himself The Master. He claims that he also survived the Time War and that he blames The Doctor for it. Of course, the theory is that his claim isn't true; that he's actually The Doctor, but from a different timeline. Instead of wanting to fix things, he's been driven insane and wants to kill off all other dimensional versions of himself as some whacked out form of atonement for the war."

Tony turned to look blankly at the worktop, his eyes haunted as he looked into his own memories.

"He grabbed me in the hopes that The Doctor would come after me. And he did. There was a nasty battle and in the end The Master and his TARDIS were blown up. I was caught in the explosion." 

A deep shrug that didn't quite manage to dismiss the trauma he'd suffered. Gibbs could see so much of his own Tony in this older man that he wanted to soothe his hurts, but he honestly didn't know how.

"Almost didn't survive the blast Boss, but...I did. Now I'm...changed. I can travel through the Rift with ease, navigate between the timelines without a thousand pounds worth of computer processing power to guide me. I can also take people through with me." A self-depreciating grin flashed across the room at him. "That's what I do for Harkness. He guards the Rift and our timeline from invasion while I lead teams of Agents through the Rift in the hopes of saving people from fallen dimensions or preventing the fall of ones that are in danger."

Another shrug. "On those occasions when The Doctor needs Harkness for a mission, I stay behind to guard the Rift."

Gibbs just looked at him for a moment and then reached up with both hands to rub his temples. "Oh Jesus." He leaned over at the waist and tried not to hyperventilate. It took a little longer to get a hold of himself than he wished. He heard the clink of glass and then Tony was holding out his mug complete with a refill of the last of the bourbon. He stood up straight again and took the mug. He didn't even blink, he just tossed the whole thing back in one gulp.

Tony stood there and waited patiently while he desperately tried to pull himself together and wrap his mind around the truth that was there, if unspoken. Finally, he leaned back against the boat and closed his eyes.

"This isn't your timeline, is it? You're not my Tony just come back from the future."

A long pause and then a soft sigh filled the basement

"No, I'm not from this timeline. Although, I did also travel through time. But only after I traveled through the Rift first."

Gibbs swallowed and then stood up away from the boat and wobbled his way over to the worktop again. He leaned against it hard for a moment before slumping down onto his stool. 

"Why?"

Tony paused and Gibbs gut clenched. He knew deep down to his bones that the reason was a bad one. 

"WHY!"

His shout was a sharp report of pain that echoed from the ceiling. Tony sighed and the haunted look entered his eyes, making the bright green darken and dim.

"Every timeline I have been to where the Dalek's have invaded and wiped out humanity had one thing in common. There was no Captain Jack Harkness."

Gibbs tensed up and then froze as he listened intently.

"That's not to say that all timelines without him have fallen. Just...all the ones that have fallen so far, have never had Harkness in them." Tony leaned back against the worktop and sighed. "At first, we thought that he was the key, but..." He shook his head.

Gibbs tilted his head. "There's something else. Something besides this Harkness."

Tony nodded. 

"After a while we came to the conclusion that Harkness wasn't so much the key to success as having him in the timeline was like stacking the deck in The Doctor's favor. The Doctor's success rate jumps incredibly when he has Harkness as a companion and ally."

Gibbs nodded to indicate he understood the distinction. Harkness' presence might guarantee success, but the lack of his presence didn't necessarily guarantee failure.

"I started trying to find common elements in those timelines that didn't have Harkness in them, but that were also holding their own against the Dalek's and any other thing that went wonky." Tony frowned, his eyes haunted. "I found certain things...certain patterns that when broken lead to bad things happening."

Gibbs let out a tired sigh. God, he didn't want to know. He wanted this to be some booze induced nightmare so that he could wake up under his boat with the mother of all hangovers. 

"You're here because this timeline,...my world, is set on a path to invasion by aliens. We don't have a version of this Captain Jack Harkness."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes." A long pause. "God Boss, I'm so sorry. I'm so....so sorry."

Gibbs' head dropped even as he sighed. "How long?"

Tony tilted his head, obviously confused for a long second. Then his eyes opened wider in comprehension. "Oh!"

"No, Boss. You don't understand. I think we can prevent it from coming to pass. Or...at least you can."

Now it was Gibbs turn to look confused.

"See, once I started noticing the patterns that prevented invasion or destruction or whatnot, I contacted The Doctor. Harkness and I explained our theory about the common elements and patterns found in those timelines that were still safe and humanity was alive. He agreed to help us conduct an experiment and crafted a device that would allow me to contact his alternate timeline doppelganger once I crossed through the Rift."

A shrug and a self-deprecating grin. "Not that it always worked, because sometimes The Doctor is dead too, but..."

Tony trailed off for a moment then turned to face Gibbs and grimaced.

"Look, Boss. In those timelines that fell, I've been trying to travel back in time to set things up in specific ways in order to give those timelines the best chance to prevent or survive the invasion. It's not a guarantee without both The Doctor and Harkness, but..." a soft sigh, "a chance is better than nothing."

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah, Tony. A chance is better than nothing. A chance is all anyone asks for." He paused and sighed. "This is what you need my help for, isn't it? You need me to set something up or...make something happen or not happen?"

Tony flashed him that brilliant smile again. "Never could hide anything from you, Boss."

The smile dimmed.

"In those timelines that flourish without Harkness, there are three people who are key. They each have their own role to play and if they are in the right place at the right time, they almost always do the one thing that's needed to keep the timeline safe. Take them away and the chances for humanities survival plummets." Tony tilted his head and gave Gibbs his most serious stare. "I want you to protect one of them."

Gibbs blinked and nodded tentatively. "The other two are as safe as they can be and are on the path that will take them to the right place at the right time. It's the third...well, the loss of her pretty much signed the death warrant on this timeline. So..."

Gibbs glanced over at the bottle of bourbon and cursed that it was empty. He nodded and turned back to look at Tony. 

"Okay. Who is it?"

Tony's eyes grew haunted again and regret poured off of him.

"It's odd, because if Harkness was alive here, she wouldn't need to be. One or the other, but without Harkness, she's the only one that can do his job."

Gibbs lifted one eyebrow. "As head of Torchwood?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Or, truthfully, not just lead Torchwood, but help it to evolve and change into a true force for good."

Tony leaned back against the worktop and crossed one ankle over the other. When he spoke, his voice was in the soft cadence of storyteller.

"When Torchwood was first founded, human tech was practically non-existent since it was before the industrial revolution or the invention of...well anything we'd consider basic science. Anything alien was seen as the enemy and tech was captured even if it wasn't understood. The whole Agency and it's mission parameters were based on fear and ignorance, not knowledge and true understanding of the beings and forces involved." 

Tony flashed him a wry grin even as he continued his story.

"Harkness was in the past when the fledgling Agency of Torchwood One brought him in against his will. He tried to teach them, to guide them. To help them truly understand what was out there. He wasn't very successful at first due to the Queen's rigid stance and the cultural mores of the day, but over time he did have some sway. His influence leapt to the fore with the destruction of Torchwood One and his taking over the remaining Agency. He rewrote a lot of the rules and set up certain parameters that were more in line with the truth and less to do with human fear and bigotry. Without him, Torchwood never gets that kick in the pants that points them in the correct direction. That's why we need this other person in the drivers seat at Torchwood Three. She's the only one that can do it."

A long pause, but Gibbs couldn't not push. "Who, Tony?"

Tony swallowed hard. "God Boss, I'm so sorry. It's..." he closed his eyes, breathed deep, and then opened them again. "It's Katie, Boss."

Gibbs' heart skipped a beat and for a quick second he thought he was gonna pass out.

"My Kate? Special Agent Kate Todd? That Katie?"

Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked to be a fancy PDA. He held it out towards Gibbs, regret and loss in his eyes. Not wanting to, but feeling like he had no choice, Gibbs reached out and took it.

"I downloaded a bunch of information to help guide you through the various events. Some things are marked to be changed, as well as what the preferred outcome should be. Some things are marked to be allowed to play out exactly as they happen."

Tony sighed and looked down at his shoes. "The first main thing is something that happened in my timeline. It's all set up to happen identically in this one too. You have to stop it from happening."

Gibbs stared at the PDA and wondered how long it would take before he worked up the nerve to turn it on and look at the information contained in it.

"Oh? What's that?"

There was a heavy silence before Tony cleared his throat. "Ari Hasswari is a double agent. The only problem is, his true loyalty is with the Hammas, not Mossad."

Gibbs head whipped up and around, his attention once again fully on this older version of his second in command.

"He has everyone fooled about his loyalty because his father is the Head of Mossad, but Eli David had his mother killed in a bombing, and Ari never forgave him that. So...the CIA and Mossad are protecting a turncoat viper and they don't even know it."

Tony grimaced. "I've never really understood his obsession with you. I don't know if he sees you as a threat since you never bought his story, or if he just gets a kick out of hunting you while everyone calls you crazy for doubting him. Who knows?"

"The point is, in roughly one months time, he sets up a sniper nest in a certain spot that he knows our team will be. Ari knew we would be there because it was his Hammas terrorist cell that we were chasing. I'm fairly convinced that he set them up to be caught by us just so that he would have us at a place and time of his choosing. He put a bullet in Katie's forehead, killing her instantly."

Gibbs heart skipped another beat. Then he stood up so fast his stool tipped over even as he grabbed up his empty mug, pivoted and threw it across the room. The mug shattered into a thousand shards as it hit the cinderblock wall. Tony didn't flinch at the destruction or when Gibbs pivoted back and leveled his best glare at him. Instead he met that look with a glare of his own and pointed to the PDA.

"Use that information. Kill Ari. Keep Katie alive and train her to be the best of the best. When the time comes, rescue The Doctor from the kidnapper with delusions of Time Lord grandeur. Make sure Kate goes with him. If you, or Tim, or myself wants to go too, that's fine. If you or they want to stay, that's fine. Kate needs to go with him. He'll train her in how to deal with and manipulate the timestream and teach her about fighting the Daleks. After her apprenticeship is over, he'll take her to Torchwood and she'll eventually be promoted to become Head of the Agency."

Tony's glare softened and he leaned back against the worktop.

"Those other two people will be in place to help her and together the three of them will, if everything goes right, stop the invasion before it gets started."

"Who are the other two?"

Tony bit his lip and looked away, a haunted look in his eye.

"DINOZZO!" Tony's head whipped around. The look of raw pain in his eye made Gibbs soften his tone. "Tony, I need to know."

Tony nodded and sighed. "I know. It's just hard Boss. All three of them are dead in my timeline. Kate was killed by Ari. I can still close my eyes and feel her hot blood splashed across my face."

Gibbs swallowed. He knew intimately what it was like to have a partner, a buddy die next to you in combat. He could also close his eyes and pull those memories up so that it was like reliving it all over again.

"Tony...." his voice was soft, sympathetic. "It won't happen. You've risked a lot to warn me. Now that I know about it, I can...will, I will prevent it. She won't die. I promise you."

Then Tony sighed, but there were tones of relief in it. "Thanks Boss." As if just hearing the words made it real in his mind. He wondered once again what he had done to have this man's absolute trust and faith.

"Kate is the first. As the Head of Torchwood she'll be able to guard the Rift and detect any sign of invasion as it's happening. She'll be able to react immediately. The second is Tony Stark of Stark International."

Gibbs blinked in confusion. "The playboy?"

Tony smirked. 

"Yeah. Something fairly traumatic will happen to him that's gonna yank his head outta his own ass and he's gonna invent a weapon." Tony grinned a little boy grin. "It's super cool, Boss. You're gonna love this thing."

"The third person..." Tony trailed off even as the enthusiasm drained from him. "God, the third person. She..."

A bleak look entered Tony's eyes. "In my...in my world, well...she and I...." He swallowed hard. "She could'a been the One for me Boss. She was...special."

Gibbs swallowed and his gut prodded him to ask, "She dead in your world, Tony?"

Tony nodded and took a deep breath. "Yeah, Boss. She died in my arms from wounds gotten fighting the Daleks."

There was a long pause. "Who is she, Tony?"

"Tru Davies." A smirk on his lips that belied the pain in his eyes, Tony said, "She was gifted from birth in a way that was unexpected and rarely happened with a human. The Doctor found her because of her unique signature in the timestream. She was also the one who gave me the idea to check for patterns in the timestream by asking about her doubles on the other side of the Rift."

"See, she had two grandparents on either side of her family that had been companions of The Doctor. They hadn't traveled through time enough to change as completely as myself or Harkness, but it was enough to affect their genetics. When those changes combined in their shared granddaughter, it resulted in Tru."

"What did it do to her?" Gibbs couldn't help but be curious. 

"She had the ability to peer into the timestream and see where things would go. Oh, she couldn't see very far into the future and only in a limited capacity, but...still she was a real seer."

Tony sighed and pushed himself away from the worktop. "See? With Torchwood at her back and Stark and Tru at her side, Kate can save the world." He shrugged. "But she has to survive long enough to get there."

Gibbs looked down at the PDA. "And that's where I come in."

A pause.

"Yeah, Boss. That's where you come in." Tony rubbed his one hand along his chin, the look in his eyes making him seem even older than before. "Kill Ari, protect Kate. Keep an eye out for The Doctor."

Tony looked down at his wrist. He was wearing a watch that, while sleek and stylish, wasn't like any watch he'd ever seen before. 

"Well, it's been great seeing you again Boss, but I've gotta go." He grinned a movie star smile and tilted his head boyishly. "People to manipulate into following my crazy schemes, time machines to ride back to the future in,...you know how it goes."

Gibbs snorted a sound of amusement even as Tony turned on his heel and began to walk away. When the other man reached the stairs leading back up into the house he called out to him, "Tony!"

He turned his head to look, "Yeah, Boss?"

"What about you?" Gibbs blinked and shook his head. "I mean, the younger version of you from this side of the Rift?"

Tony's smile turned wry. "I'm not important in the grand scheme of things, Boss. If the me of this timeline survives and follows Katie to Torchwood, he'll be an asset to her and help her in many ways. Just like I'm an asset to Harkness that he uses with ruthless efficiency, but...still in the long run, she's the important one."

And what could he say to that? He wasn't even that surprised at the answer. He'd seen hints of that fatalistic denial of self hiding underneath the egotistic womanizer that characterized his own version of Tony DiNozzo. Before he could formulate a reply, Tony had turned and dashed up the stairs and out of his house.

For half a moment he managed to convince himself it was all just a dream, a delusion caused by too much booze and too many long hours hunting criminals. Then he turned his head and saw that strange looking PDA sitting silently on the worktop and he knew his world would never be the same.


End file.
